Sign Up

Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.

Have an account? Sign In

Have an account? Sign In Now

Sign In

Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.

Sign Up Here

Forgot Password?

Don't have account, Sign Up Here

Forgot Password

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

Have an account? Sign In Now

You must login to ask a question.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.

Sign InSign Up

The Archive Base

The Archive Base Logo The Archive Base Logo

The Archive Base Navigation

  • SEARCH
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
Search
Ask A Question

Mobile menu

Close
Ask a Question
  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Feed
  • User Profile
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Buy Points
  • Users
  • Help
  • Buy Theme
  • SEARCH
Home/ Questions/Q 217327
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Editorial Team
Asked: May 11, 20262026-05-11T18:38:49+00:00 2026-05-11T18:38:49+00:00

What do the terms CPU bound and I/O bound mean?

  • 0

What do the terms “CPU bound” and “I/O bound” mean?

  • 1 1 Answer
  • 1 View
  • 0 Followers
  • 0
Share
  • Facebook
  • Report

Leave an answer
Cancel reply

You must login to add an answer.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

1 Answer

  • Voted
  • Oldest
  • Recent
  • Random
  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-05-11T18:38:50+00:00Added an answer on May 11, 2026 at 6:38 pm

    It’s pretty intuitive:

    A program is CPU bound if it would go faster if the CPU were faster, i.e. it spends the majority of its time simply using the CPU (doing calculations). A program that computes new digits of π will typically be CPU-bound, it’s just crunching numbers.

    A program is I/O bound if it would go faster if the I/O subsystem was faster. Which exact I/O system is meant can vary; I typically associate it with the disk, but of course, networking or communication, in general, is common too. A program that looks through a huge file for some data might become I/O bound since the bottleneck is then the reading of the data from disk (actually, this example is perhaps kind of old-fashioned these days with hundreds of MB/s coming in from SSDs).

    • 0
    • Reply
    • Share
      Share
      • Share on Facebook
      • Share on Twitter
      • Share on LinkedIn
      • Share on WhatsApp
      • Report

Sidebar

Related Questions

Does a callback put more strain on a server in terms of cpu because
My application seems to be slow, but in terms of CPU and RAM, it
In terms of quick dynamically typed languages, I'm really starting to like Javascript, as
In terms of general operating system concepts, what is the difference between a file
In terms of the number of servers ready to receive an application written in
The terms are used all over the place, and I don't know of crisp
in terms of both parsing (serializing, deserializing) and sending packets over the network is
In terms of PC development (excluding Xbox and Zune), What is the difference between
Since debate without meaningful terms is meaningless , I figured I would point at
In simple terms, what are the reasons for, and what are the differences between

Explore

  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Users
  • Help
  • SEARCH

Footer

© 2021 The Archive Base. All Rights Reserved
With Love by The Archive Base

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

    No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.